Key Messages and Asks
- Afghanistan is at acute famine-prevention failure: famine-prevention activities for 1.5 million people are cancelled July–November 2026 and the nutrition pipeline is broken through end-June 2026.
- The six-month funding requirement is 95% unresourced; every major supply corridor is disrupted; Pakistani airstrikes are escalating into active WFP programming areas.
- Winter prepositioning for millions faces a hard pre-November 2026 deadline — without immediate resources, the window closes irreversibly.
ASKS
- Authorize emergency donor outreach at ED level, prioritizing Gulf bilaterals, World Bank, and ADB, using nutrition mortality data to anchor the ask against the USD 359M six-month NFR.
- Direct RBO to commission an immediate throughput ceiling assessment for the Lapis Lazuli Corridor and identify a tertiary contingency route before the November snowfall deadline.
- Request CERF activation for the nutrition pipeline break: only 1 in 4 acutely malnourished children is currently reached, ahead of the Q3 peak when GAM typically hits 11%.
Operations Overview
Key Figures:
| Population | 48.6 million |
| Food Insecure People (IPC Phase 3–5) |
13.8 million people in IPC Phase 3+ (28% of the population)
P3: 10.9 million / P4: 2.9 million / P5: 0
IPC classification dated Oct 2025 (Sep 2025 - Oct 2025, current analysis).
|
| Activity | 2024 Target |
2024 Actuals |
2025 Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total people target for the year (all activities) | 16.2 million | 11.3 million | 11.7 million |
| SO1: Vulnerable people in Afghanistan are able to meet their food and nutrition needs during and immediately after emergencies through 2025 | 13.7 million | 9.2 million | 9.8 million |
| SO2: Vulnerable people in Afghanistan are increasingly able to meet their food and nutrition needs on their own by 2025 | 700,700 | 547,029 | 503,139 |
| SO3: Vulnerable people at each stage of the life cycle in target areas have improved nutrition by 2025 | 1.8 million | 1.5 million | 1.4 million |
|
Monthly People Reached (last three months) *Include only if relevant for CO, i.e. if CO is already reporting monthly figures (e.g. Sudan, Syria, Ukraine) |
May 2026 | 2.1 million |
| April 2026 | 1.9 million |
| 2025 People Reached | 12.4 million |
| 2024 People Reached | 11.8 million |
| Inject into local economy |
WFP Presence:
- National Staff: / International:
- Number of Offices:
- Number of partners: UN / NGO
- UNHAS Presence: In May 2026, UNHAS maintained 181 flights to 14 destinations, transporting 1,082 passengers from 53 organizations.
- Other notable common services/ service provision:
Funding Overview (As of 2026-06-10 Country Brief)
| Funding requirement (next six months) | USD 404 Million (8% funded) |
Needs Based Plan |
| Funding shortfall (next six months) | USD 371 Million | Net funding shortfall |
| Donor | Amount (USD) | Donor | Amount (USD) | Donor | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All other donors | All other donors | All other donors | |||
| Total Funding Received | Total Funding Received | Total Funding Received | |||
- The 47% funding drop in 2025 has accelerated into 2026: the trajectory across three consecutive country briefs (March: 14% resourced; April: 19%; May: 5%) confirms a worsening — not stabilizing — shortfall.
- USAID's dissolution and the congressional hold on USD 19 billion in closeout obligations represent a structural, not cyclical, loss — the traditional donor base that sustained this operation no longer exists in its prior form.
Context Overview
WFP response:
WFP Operations:
- April 2026: 2.9 million people reached — 2.1M via general food assistance, ~128K malnourished children and pregnant/breastfeeding women via TSFP, 440K school children in Nangarhar and Farah.
- Returnee cash assistance to ~54,000 people delivered a final round in May 2026; assistance at five border crossings is suspended from June 2026 onward due to funding collapse.
- UNHAS operated 183 flights to 13 destinations for 1,220 passengers in April 2026, but fleet remains at 3 aircraft with 6 remote locations suspended.
Latest Updates:
- Pakistani airstrikes on 28–29 June 2026 killed 36+ civilians in Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar — provinces with active WFP programming; Taliban retaliation threats signal further access deterioration.
- US-Iran ceasefire is fracturing after fresh Hormuz strikes; the Dubai–Iran secondary supply route remains severed, leaving the Lapis Lazuli Corridor — at triple cost, with only 700 mt in transit — as the sole active option.
- May 2026 nutrition reach collapsed to ~30,000 children and pregnant/breastfeeding women, roughly 10% of the planned caseload of ~300,000; stunting prevention reached ~13,000 children.
- USAID closeout faces a congressional hold on USD 19 billion in obligations, compounding the structural loss of US funding that is a primary driver of the 95%-unresourced NFR.
Context Overview:
- Humanitarian needs: 13.8 million people are in IPC Phase 3+ (October 2025 — treat as a floor; the CSP Revision projects 17.4 million entering the 2025/26 winter lean season). Counter-seasonal nutrition deterioration is underway: GAM by MUAC rose to 8.5% in Q1 2026, ahead of the typical Q3 peak of 11%. Over 500,000 forced returnees arrived January–April 2026, with border assistance now suspended.
- Political context: The Taliban's de facto authorities continue to ban female UN and NGO staff from premises, structurally degrading last-mile delivery and monitoring. Pakistani cross-border strikes have affected 72 districts across 12 provinces since February 2026; the China-brokered de-escalation framework has collapsed. SIGAR corruption allegations against WFP (July 2025) continue to shape US re-engagement posture and donor scrutiny.
- Economic overview: Real labour terms of trade collapsed 26% year-on-year to 10.6 kg wheat flour per day. The CBT transfer value (AFN 5,800) is already 3.4% below the current FSAC basket cost, approaching the mandatory revision trigger. Urea prices are up 55% year-on-year, signalling harvest-season supply stress. Transport costs have tripled due to corridor disruption, compressing delivery budgets further.
- Regional context:
- Public reporting flags the Lapis Lazuli Corridor as Afghanistan's sole active supply route; the Pakistan border has been closed since October 2025 and the Dubai–Iran route is severed by the Hormuz disruption.
- FEWS NET (June 2026) confirms poor vegetation and rainfall deficits in Badakhshan, Faryab, and Jawzjan, with El Niño at 80–90% probability of becoming one of the strongest on record, threatening the 2026/27 agricultural season.
- WFP Tajikistan's northern corridor coordination role at Shir Khan Bandar carries uncosted obligations; its own July–December 2026 funding requirement of USD 2.30M is unmet, creating compounding fragility in the only viable alternative route.
Actors of Influence:
Areas for Leadership Attention:
- Public reporting (SIGAR-25-29-LL, July 2025) flags WFP as the primary subject of corruption and bid-rigging allegations in Afghanistan; this is shaping US re-engagement and donor scrutiny at the precise moment the operation needs emergency replenishment.
- Public reporting on DFA restrictions indicates female staff exclusion from UN premises is structurally degrading monitoring coverage while the localization shift to local NGOs increases fiduciary exposure — a compounding compliance risk flagged in the 2025 ACR.
- Public reporting (CSP Revision, December 2025) flags the pre-November 2026 snowfall deadline as a hard cut-off for northern corridor winter prepositioning; without immediate resourcing, millions will be unreachable until spring 2027.
Achievements/Success stories:
- The first-ever inter-agency Anticipatory Action Framework for drought was activated in 2025, reaching 84,539 beneficiaries and demonstrating ~20% cost savings per month versus late response.
- Resilience investments showed a USD 5.48 return per USD 1 invested; the Multi-Partner Social Protection Engagement Framework was co-developed with the World Bank and UNICEF.
- School-based assistance expanded to 1,082 schools under HGSF; the Maternal and Child Benefit Programme reached 68,000 pregnant women in 2025, now scaled to 52,500 per month under World Bank funding in 2026.